Synopsis

Most nights in the Bucket home, dinner is a watered-down bowl of cabbage soup, which young Charlie gladly shares with his mother and father and both pairs of grandparents. Every night, the last thing Charlie sees from his window is Willy Wonka's great factory, and he drifts off to sleep dreaming about what might be inside. For nearly fifteen years, no one has seen a single worker going in or coming out of the factory, or caught a glimpse of Wonka himself, yet, great quantities of chocolate are still being made and shipped all over the world. One day Willy Wonka makes a momentous announcement. He will open his famous factory and reveal "all of its secrets and magic" to five lucky children who find golden tickets hidden inside five randomly selected Wonka chocolate bars. Nothing would make Charlie's family happier than to see him win but the odds are very much against him as they can only afford to buy one chocolate bar a year, for his birthday. One by one, news breaks around the world about the children finding golden tickets and Charlie's hope grows dimmer. But then, something wonderful happens. Charlie finds some money on the snowy street and takes it to the nearest store for a Wonka Whipple-Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight. There, under the wrapper is a flash of gold. It's the last ticket. Charlie is going to the factory! The family decides that Grandpa Joe, who used to work in the factory, should be the one to accompany Charlie on this adventure. Once inside, Charlie is dazzled by one amazing sight after another. Wondrous gleaming contraptions of Wonka's own invention churn, pop, and whistle, crews of merry Oompa-Loompas mine mountains of fudge beside a frothy chocolate waterfall, a hundred trained squirrels on a hundred tiny stools shell nuts for chocolate bars, and Wonka himself pilots an impossible glass elevator that rockets every which way you can think of through the fantastic factory. Almost as intriguing as his fanciful inventions is Willy Wonka. He thinks about nothing but candy--except, every once in a while, when he seems to be thinking about something that happened long ago, that he can't quite talk about. Meanwhile, the other children prove to be a rotten bunch, and one by one, their greedy personalities lead them into all kinds of trouble that force them off the tour. When only Charlie is left, Willie Wonka reveals the final secret, the absolute grandest prize of all: the keys to the factory itself.